I’m Robert from My Multiple Incomes. For those of you who don’t know, this is my second time around the Yakezie Challenge block. I’m also the guy behind The College Investor, a blog dedicated to personal finance for young adults and college students. I started My Multiple Incomes in 2011 after blogging for over 2 years at The College Investor. At first, I was leery about starting a second blog due to the time and effort involved, and continued to ask myself – what if I just posted everything at The College Investor?

In the end, I decided to keep The College Investor focused on it’s mission of delivering great personal finance topics geared towards young adults, and start My Multiple Incomes to discuss the multiple income theory I had been developing.

Multiple Incomes as Theory

After writing a ton of personal finance advice, I was struck by something. I’d written about diversification dozens of time, but it was always about diversification of investments. I thought to myself – diversification is important, but it should also apply to individual cash flow as well as investments. I realized that most Americans really only had one or maybe two sources of income, and if they lost one, they were going to be in trouble.

So, I personally wanted to start a mission to diversify my own cash flow. To do this, I would need to develop multiple streams of income to supplement my salary and my wife’s salary. And I decided to start a blog to document my journey. That is how My Multiple Incomes came to be – a blog to discuss multiple income streams!

What You’ll Find at My Multiple Incomes

At My Multiple Incomes, I try to highlight how I’m diversifying my income stream. Beyond my salary, I highlight how I’ve started monetizing my web properties, how I’ve created a monthly dividend income stream, and I’m looking to add rental property income to the mix soon. As you can tell, these are different from The College Investor, and so I thought it was best to put them on their own site.

All of my posts are targeted towards these buckets:

Getting a great job and salary

Starting a side income (either online or offline)

Generating an investment income

Coming Soon – Getting a rental property for income

With each post, I try to be as transparent as possible while maintaining semi-anonymity. For example, I will share all my side incomes, since many individuals have or are trying to have very close comparisons. However, I avoid sharing my exact salary for privacy.

Every month, I recap my multiple income stream earnings through my Income Stream Reports, which have become extremely popular topics.

I don’t want to ever fall into the “make money online” niche, but I do want to show that everyone can create multiple income streams to diversify their cash flow, and set themselves up for financial success in the future.

Robert Farrington is the founder of The College Investor, which began in 2009 when a recent graduate decided there was a need to encourage college students to pursue investments and keep each other informed on the lastest and greatest personal finance ideas out there. It started with many small iterations before finally taking the form it is in today.

good stuff Robert. been following you for some time. multiple streams of “side income” is a topic very dear to me. I am actually surprised that you are just now diving into real estate – I just poorly assumed this was something you were already doing.

I noticed you report on your dividend income. are these within your retirement accounts or investment accounts outside retirement (401k/IRA)

is your writing service a one man shop or are you leveraging VAs / outsourcing?

finally, to put things in perspective I believe many readers always ask/wonder about the other 2 key variables involved in side gigging. first, how much time did you invest in your business for the month in which you are reporting profits. second, how much expense did you incur? making “4,000″ can be significantly diluted if you spent $3,500 sustaining that revenue stream.

I have been tossing around the idea of income reports as well for a long time now. however I feel to be truly transparent and display a fair representation, I will have to dissect and allocate quite a bit to match revenue streams with relevant time investment and expenditure. I don’t just want to say that I made 11k in adsense and 10k in ebook sales and affiliate commissions this month, rather I want to tie it to a particular/or particular set of web properties, and then also provide the expenses incurred by each, as well as the time invested in generating/sustaining those kinds of numbers.

My dividend income is mostly (85%) from my regular cash brokerage account. I do get a little in my 401k, but I don’t count it because I don’t get a choice on my investments there. I do count my Roth IRA, since that is self-directed and I choose.

For the writing service, it is mostly a just me! I have outsourced longer pieces, but most of my clients like the cheapest 350 word post, and those are written by me everytime.

Great point on expenses and time Sunil. I’m going to make that a longer, more detailed post in the future, but I will tell you now that I only outsource a bit – 2 staff writers for The College Investor, which I just started last month. My average expenses are around $500 per month, including hosting, software subscriptions, and subcontracted services. I think I’m going to keep track of my time for a week and see what that comes out to, it should be interesting!

Sunil, I would be interested in reading yours as well. I love reading about others success online. Robert congratulations, 2 sites as yakezie members is something to be proud of. I enjoy reading your posts on the college investor as I *shrugggg* almost 30 yr old move away from my college years!! I love the income reports, they are fascinating and just shows that hard work and dedication anyone can make it online. thanks for the inspiration!

I never knew you had a second site, I guess I should pay closer attention.

I do not even have a regular main source of income as I am still in school, but I am trying to develop a bunch of side incomes that I can continue to have once I am working full time. I will be checking out My Multiple Incomes often.

Robert – I love your 2nd site (and 1st too). You were part of the inspiration behind my motivation to start passive income to retire. I wanted to make it unique to my situation though. Keep up the great work!

Congrats on making Member with your second site! I always have my hands full running one site so I’m instantly impressed with anyone who runs more than one, especially as well as you do. :) Keep up the awesomeness!

Hi Robert: I think this is a very important focal point for people that really want to excel their finances. Sad, but we’ve gotten to the point where you need to add more income streams if you really want to get ahead.

I wouldn’t say anyone needs to have more income streams, but it just makes sense considering everything that is happening in the world. It used to be that you could depend on a job for 20+ years, and that just isn’t the case anymore.

I’ve always believed if you want to build wealth you need to spend wisely and diversify your income sources. Your story is an inspiration Robert and I have enjoyed getting to know you over the last several months.

Thanks for sharing. I believe in multiple income sources to the max! I have been doing it almost all my life. You can not rely on one, two or even three income streams. When I retire, I will have 5-6 income streams.

Great post. It’s amazing how many people are aware to diversify your investments but don’t think of the importance of diversifying your own cash flow. I think diversification is key to implement in many aspects of life, especially cash flow. :)

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